mother, the Landgravine of Hesse, came to be with her in her
confinement. On September 6 her Serene Highness visited me in my
prison, at first wishing to remain incognito. She had with her a
Princess of Curland, who was betrothed to the son of the Landgravine;
her lady in waiting, a Wallenstein by birth; and the wife of her
master of the household. The Landgravine greeted me with a kiss, and
the others followed her example. I did not at that time recognise the
wife of the master of the household, but she had known me formerly in
my prosperity at the Hague, when she had been in the service of the
Countess Leuenstein, and the tears stood in her eyes.
The Landgravine lamented my hard fate and my unhappy circumstances. I
thanked her Serene Highness for the gracious sympathy she felt with
me, and said that she might help much in alleviating my fetters, if
not in liberating me from them entirely. The Landgravine smiled and
said, 'I see well you take me for another than I am.' I said, 'Your
Serene Highness's deportment and appearance will not allow you to
conceal your rank, were you even in peasant's attire.' This pleased
her; she laughed and jested, and said she had not thought of that.
The lady in waiting agreed with me, and said that I had spoken very
justly in saying that I had recognised her by her royal appearance.
Upon this the Landgravine said, 'You do not know her?' pointing to
the Princess of Curland. She then said who she was, and afterwards
who her lady in waiting was, and also the wife of the master of the
household, who was as I have before mentioned. She spoke of the pity
which this lady felt for me, and added 'Et moy pas moins.' I thanked
her 'Altesse tres-humblement et la prioit en cette occasion de faire
voir sa genereuse conduite.' Her Serene Highness looked at the prison
governor as though she would say that we might speak French too long;
she took off her glove and gave me her hand, pressing mine and
saying, 'Croyez-moy, je fairez mon possible.' I kissed her Serene
Highness's hand, and she then took leave of me with a kiss.
The virtuous Landgravine kept her word, but could effect nothing.
When her Majesty the Queen was in the perils of childbirth, she went
to the King and obtained from him a solemn promise that if the Queen
gave birth to a son I should receive my liberty. On October 11, in
the night between one and two o'clock, God delivered her Majesty in
safety of our Crown Prince. When all present were duly rejoicing at
the Prince's birth, the Landgravine said, 'Oh! will not the captive
rejoice!' The Queen Dowager enquired 'Why?' The Landgravine related
the King's promise. The Queen Dowager was so angry that she was ill.
She loosened her jacket, and said she would return home; that she
would not wait till the child was baptised. Her coach appeared in the
palace square. The King at length persuaded her to remain till the
baptism was over, but he was obliged to promise with an oath that I
should not be liberated. This vexed the virtuous Landgravine not a
little, that the Queen should have induced her son to break his
promise; and she persisted in saying that a king ought to keep his
vow. The Queen Dowager answered, 'My son has before made a vow, and
this he has broken by his promise to your Serene Highness.' The
Landgravine said at last: 'If I cannot bring about the freedom of the
prisoner, at least let her, at my request, be removed to a better
place, with somewhat more liberty. It is not to the King's
reputation that she is imprisoned there. She is, after all, a king's
daughter, and I know that much injustice is done to her.' The Queen
Dowager was annoyed at these words, and said, 'Now, she shall not
come out; she shall remain where she is!' The Landgravine answered,
'If God will, she will assuredly come out, even though your Majesty
may will it not;' so saying, she rose and went out.
On October 18 the lady in waiting, Wallenstein, sent for Peder Jensen
Totzloff, and delivered to him by command a book entitled, D.
Heinrich Mueller's 'Geistliche Erquickstunden,'[E53] which he gave me
with a gracious message from the Landgravine. On the same day I sent
her Serene Highness, through Totzloff, my dutiful thanks, and
Totzloff took the book back to the lady in waiting, with the request
that she would endeavour to prevail on her Highness to show me the
great favour of placing her name and motto in the book, in
remembrance of her Highness's generosity and kindness. I lamented my
condition in this also, that from such a place I could not spread
abroad her Serene Highness's praise and estimable benefits, and make
the world acquainted with them; but that I would do what I could, and
I would include her Serene Highness and all her family in my prayers
for their welfare both of soul and body. (This I have done, and will
do, so long as God spares my life.)
[E53] 'Hours of Spiritual Refreshment.' This very popular book of
devotion was first published in 1664, and had an extraordinary run
both in Germany and, through translations, in Denmark. The last
Danish extract of it was published in 1846, and reached the third
edition in 1856.
On October 23 I received the book back through Totzloff, and I found
within it the following lines, written by the Landgravine's own
hand:
1671.
Ce qui n'est pas en ta puissance
Ne doit point troubler ton repos;
Tu balances mal a propos
Entre la crainte et l'esperance.
Laisse faire ton Dieu et ton roy,
Et suporte avec passience ce qu'il resoud pour toy.
Je prie Dieu de vous faire cette grace, et que je vous puisse
tesmoigner combien je suis,
Madame, vostre tres-affectionee a vous servir,
{Monogram}
The book is still in my possession, and I sent word through Totzloff
to the lady in waiting to request her to convey my most humble thanks
to her Highness; and afterwards, when the Landgravine was about to
start on her journey, to commend me to her Serene Highness's favour.
In the same year, 1671, Karen, Nils' daughter, left me on account of
ill health. For one night a woman was with me named Margrete, who was
a serf from Holstein. She had run away from her master. She was a
very awkward peasant woman, so towards evening on the following day
she was sent away, and in her place there came a woman named Inger, a
person of loose character. This woman gave herself out as the widow
of a non-commissioned officer, and that she had long been in service
at Hamburg, and nursed lying-in women. It happened with her, as is
often the case, that one seeks to obtain a thing, and that to one's
own vexation. Chresten had spoken for this woman with the prison
governor, and had praised her before me, but the prison governor took
upon another recommendation the before-mentioned Margrete. So long as
there was hope that the Landgravine might obtain my freedom, this
woman was very amenable, but afterwards she began by degrees to show
what was in her, and that it was not for nothing that she resembled
Dina.
She caused me annoyance of various kinds, which I received with
patience, thinking within myself that it was another trial imposed by
God upon me, and Dina's intrigues often came into my mind, and I
thought, 'Suppose she should devise some Dina plot?' (She is capable
of it, if she had only an instigator, as Dina had.) Among other
annoyances, which may not be reckoned among the least, was this: I
was one day not very well, having slept but little or not at all
during the night, and I had lain down to sleep on the bed in the day;
and she would give me no rest, but came softly past me in her socks,
and in order to wake me teased a dog which I had,[137] so that he
growled. I asked her why she grudged my sleeping? She answered, 'I
did not know that you were asleep.' 'Why, then,' I said, 'did you go
by in your stockings?' She replied, 'If you saw that, then you were
not asleep,' and she laughed heartily by herself. (She sat always in
front of my table with her back turned to me; whether it was because
she had lost one eye that she sat in that position to the light, I
know not.)
[137] In the margin is added: 'This dog was of an Icelandic breed,
not pretty, but very faithful and sagacious. He slept every
afternoon on the stool, and when she had fallen asleep, she let her
hands hang down. Then the dog would get up and run softly and bite
her finger till the blood came. If she threw down her slippers, he
would take one and sit upon it. She never got it back again without
a bloody finger.'
I did not care for any conversation with her, so I lay still; and
when she thought I was asleep, she got up again and teased the dog. I
said, 'You tax my patience sorely; but if once my passion rises, you
will certainly get something which will astonish you, you base
accursed thing!' 'Base accursed thing,' she repeated to herself with
a slight laugh. I prayed to God that he would restrain me, so that I
might not lay violent hands on this base creature. And as I had the
other apartment (as I have before mentioned),[138] I went out and
walked up and down between four and five o'clock. She washed and
splashed outside, and spilled the water exactly where I was walking.
I told her several times to leave her splashing, as she spilled the
water in all directions on the floor, so that I made my clothes
dirty, and often there was not a drop of water for my dog to drink,
and the tower-warder had to fetch her water from the kitchen spring.
This was of no avail. One day it occurred to her, just as the bell
had sounded four, to go out and pour all the water on the floor, and
then come back again. When I went to the door, I perceived what she
had done. Without saying a word, I struck her first on one cheek and
then on the other, so that the blood ran from her nose and mouth, and
she fell against her bench, and knocked the skin from her shin-bone.
She began to be abusive, and said she had never in her life had such
a box on her ears. I said immediately, 'Hold your tongue, or you will
have another like it! I am now only a little angry, but if you make
me really angry I shall strike you harder.' She was silent for the
time, but she caused me all the small annoyance she could.
[138] In the margin is this note: 'In the year 1672, on the 4th
May, one of the house-servants was arrested for stealing. Adam
Knudt, at that time gentleman of the chamber, himself saw him take
several ducats early one morning from the King's trousers, which
were hanging against the walls. He was at first for some hours my
neighbour in the Dark Church. He was then placed in the Witch Cell,
and as he was to be tortured, he received secret warning of it
(which was forbidden), so that when the executioner came he was
found to have hung himself. That is to say, he was said to have
hung himself, though to all appearance this was not possible; he
was found with a cloth round his neck, which was a swaddling-cloth
belonging to one of Chresten, the tower-warder's, children.
Chresten became my neighbour, and was ostensibly brought to
justice, but he was acquitted and reinstated in his office.
I received it all with gentleness, fearing that I might lay violent
hands on her. She scarcely knew what to devise to cause me vexation;
she had a silver thimble on which a strange name was engraved; she
had found it, she said, in a dust-heap in the street. I once asked
her where she had found some handkerchiefs which she had of fine
Dutch linen, with lace on them, which likewise were marked with
another name; they were embroidered with blue silk, and there was a
different name on each. She had bought them, she said, at an auction
at Hamburg.[139] I thought that the damage she had received on one of
her eyes might very likely have arisen from her having 'found'
something of that kind,[E54] and as I soon after asked her by what
accident she had injured her eye, she undoubtedly understood my
question well, for she was angry and rather quiet, and said, 'What
injury? There is nothing the matter with my eye; I can, thank God,
see with both.' I let the matter rest there. Soon after this
conversation she came down one day from upstairs, feeling in her
pocket, though she said nothing until the afternoon, when the doors
were locked, and then she looked through all her rubbish, saying 'If
I only knew where it could be?' I asked what she was looking for. 'My
thimble,' she said. 'You will find it,' I said; 'only look
thoroughly!' And as she had begun to look for it in her pockets
before she had required it, I thought she might have drawn it out of
her pocket with some paper which she used, and which she had bought.
I said this, but it could not be so.
[139] In the margin is added: 'She was so proud of her knowledge of
German that when she sang a morning hymn (which, however rarely
happened) she interspersed it with German words. I once asked her
if she knew what her mother's cat was called in Danish, and I said
something at which she was angry.
[E54] It was a common superstition that persons who understood the
art of showing by magic the whereabouts of stolen goods, had the
power, by use of their formulas alone, to deprive the thief of an
eye.
On the following day, towards noon, she again behaved as if she were
looking for it upstairs; and when the door was closed she began to
give loose to her tongue, and to make a long story about the thimble,
where it could possibly be. 'There was no one here, and no one came
in except us two;' and she gave me to understand that I had taken it;
she took her large box which she had, and rummaged out everything
that was in it, and said, 'Now you can see that I have not got it.' I
said that I did not care about it, whether she had it or no, but that
I saw that she accused me of stealing. She adhered to it, and said,
'Who else could have taken it? There is no one else here, and I have
let you see all that is mine, and it is not there.' Then for the
first time I saw that she wished that I should let her see in the
same manner what I had in my cardbox, for she had never seen anything
of the work which I had done before her time. I said, 'I do not care
at all what you do with your thimble, and I respect myself too much
to quarrel with you or to mind your coarse and shameless accusation.
I have, thank God, enough in my imprisonment to buy what I require,
&c. But as you perhaps have stolen it, you now imagine that it has
been stolen again from you, if it be true that you have lost it.' To
this she made no answer, so that I believe she had it herself, and
only wanted by this invention to gain a sight of my things. As it was
the Christmas month and very cold, and Chresten was lighting a fire
in the stove before the evening meal, I said to him in her presence,
'Chresten, you are fortunate if you are not, like me, accused of
stealing, for you might have found her thimble upstairs without
having had it proclaimed from the pulpit; it was before found by
Inger, and not announced publicly.'
This was like a spark to tinder, and she went to work like a frantic
being, using her shameless language. She had not stolen it, but it
had been stolen from her; and she cursed and swore. Chresten ordered
her to be silent. He desired her to remember who I was, and that she
was in my service. She answered, 'I will not be silent, not if I were
standing before the King's bailiff!' The more gently I spoke, the
more angry was she; at length I said, 'Will you agree with me in one
wish?--that the person who last had the thimble in her possession may
see no better with her left eye than she sees with her right.' She
answered with an oath that she could see with both eyes. I said,
'Well, then, pray God with me that she may be blind in both eyes who
last had it.' She growled a little to herself and ran into the inner
room, and said no more of her thimble, nor did I. God knows that I
was heartily weary of this intercourse.
I prayed God for patience, and thought 'This is only a trial of
patience. God spares me from other sorrow which I might have in its
stead.' I could not avail myself of the occasion of her accusing me
of theft to get rid of her, but I saw another opportunity not far
off. The prison governor came one day to me with some thread which
was offered for sale, rather coarse, but fit for making stockings and
night-waistcoats. I bought two pounds of it, and he retained a pound,
saying, 'I suppose the woman can make me a pair of stockings with
it?' I answered in the affirmative (for she could do nothing else but
knit). When he was gone, she said, 'There will be a pair of stockings
for me here also, for I shall get no other pay.' I said, 'That is
surely enough.' The stockings for the prison governor were finished.
She sat one day half asleep, and made a false row round the stocking
below the foot. I wanted her to undo it. 'No,' said she, 'it can
remain as it is; he won't know but that it is the fashion in
Hamburg.'[140]
[140] In the margin is added: 'There was no similar row on the
other stocking. The prison governor never mentioned it.'
When his stockings were finished, she began a pair for herself of the
same thread, and sat and exulted that it was the prison governor's
thread. This, it seemed to me, furnished me with an opportunity of
getting rid of her. And as the prison governor rarely came up, and
she sent him down the stockings by Totzloff, I begged Totzloff to
contrive that the prison governor should come up to me, and that he
should seat himself on the woman's bed and arrange her pillow as if
he wanted to lean against it (underneath it lay her wool). This was
done. The prison governor came up, took the knitting in his hand, and
said to Inger, 'Is this another pair of stockings for me?' 'No, Mr.
Prison governor,' she answered, 'they are for me. You have got yours.
I have already sent you them.' 'But,' said he, 'this is of my thread;
it looks like my thread.' She protested that it was not his thread.
As he went down to fetch his stockings and the scales, she said to
me, 'That is not his thread; it is mine now,' and laughed heartily. I
thought, 'Something more may come of this.'
The prison governor came with the scales and his stockings, compared
one thread with the other, and the stockings weighed scarcely half a
pound. He asked her whether she had acted rightly? She continued to
assert that it was her thread; that she had bought it in Hamburg, and
had brought it here. The prison governor grew angry, and said that
she lied, and called her a bitch. She swore on the other hand that
it was not his thread; that she would swear it by the Sacrament. The
prison governor went away; such an oath horrified him. I was
perfectly silent during this quarrel. When the prison governor had
gone, I said to the woman, 'God forbid! how could you say such words?
Do you venture to swear a falsehood by the Sacrament, and to say it
in my presence, when I know that it is the prison governor's thread?
What a godless creature you are!' She answered, with a half
ridiculous expression of face, 'I said I would take the Sacrament
upon it, but I am not going to do so.' 'Oh Dina!' I thought, 'you are
not like her for nothing; God guard me from you!' And I said, 'Do you
think that such light words are not a sin, and that God will not
punish you for them?' She assumed an air of authority, and said, 'Is
the thread of any consequence? I can pay for it; I have not stolen it
from him; he gave it to me himself. I have only done what the tailors
do; they do not steal; it is given to them. He did not weigh out the
thread for me.' I answered her no more than 'You have taken it from
him; I shall trouble myself no more about it;' but I begged Totzloff
to do all he could that I should be rid of her, and have another in
her place of a good character.
Totzloff heard that Karen had a desire to return to me; he told me
so. The prison governor was satisfied with the arrangement. It was
kept concealed from Inger till all was so settled that Karen could
come up one evening at supper-time. When the prison governor had
unlocked the door, and had established himself in the inner room, and
the woman had come out, he said: 'Now, Inger, pack your bundle! You
are to go.' 'Yes, Mr. Prison governor,' she answered, and laughed,
and brought the food to me, and told me what the prison governor had
said, saying at the same time, 'That is his joke.' 'I heard well,' I
answered, 'what he said; it is not his joke, it is his real
earnestness.' She did not believe it; at any rate she acted as if she
did not, and smiled, saying, 'He cannot be in earnest;' and she went
out and asked the prison governor whether he was in earnest. He said,
'Go! go! there is no time for gossip!' She came into me again, and
asked if I wished to be rid of her. I answered, 'Yes.' 'Why so?' she
asked. I answered: 'It would take me too long to explain; the other
woman who is to remain here is below.' 'At any rate,' said she, 'let
me stay here over the night.' ('Ah, Dina!' I thought.) 'Not a quarter
of an hour!' I answered; 'go and pack your things! That is soon
done!' She did so, said no word of farewell, and went out of the
door.
Thus Karen came to me for the third time, but she did not remain an
entire year, on account of illness.[141]
[141] In the margin is noted: 'I must remember one thing about
Karen, Nil's daughter. When anything gave her satisfaction, she
would take up her book directly and read. I asked her whether she
understood what she read. "Yes, of course," she answered, "as truly
as God will bless you! When a word comes that I don't understand, I
pass it over." I smiled a little in my own mind, but said nothing.'
In the year 1673 M. Moth became vice-bishop in Fyn. I lost much in
him, and in his place came H. Emmeke Norbye, who became court
preacher, and who had formerly been a comrade of Griffenfeldt; but
Griffenfeldt did not acknowledge him subsequently, so that he could
achieve nothing for me with Griffenfeldt.[E55] He one day brought me
as answer (when I sent him word among other things that his Majesty
would be gracious if only some one would speak for me), 'It would be
as if a pistol had been placed at the King's heart, and he were to
forgive it.'
[E55] Griffenfeldt, who was then at the height of his power, was
the son of a wine-merchant, by name Schumacher, but had risen by
his talents alone to the highest dignities. He was ennobled under
the name of Griffenfeldt, and was undoubtedly the ablest statesman
Denmark ever possessed. Eventually he was thrust from his high
position by an intrigue set on foot by German courtiers and backed
by foreign influence. He was accused of treason and kept in prison
from 1676 to 1698, the year before he died, to the great, perhaps
irreparable damage, of his native country. The principal witness
against him was a German doctor, Mauritius, a professional spy, who
had served the Danish Government in this capacity. The year after
the fall of Griffenfeld, he was himself arrested on a charge of
perjury, forgery, and high treason, and placed in the Blue Tower;
he was convicted and conducted to Bornholm, where he died. But
Griffenfeldt, who had been convicted on his false testimony, was
not liberated. Griffenfeldt's ability and patriotism cannot be
doubted, but his personal character was not without blemish; and it
is a fact that in his prosperity he disclaimed all connection with
his earlier friends, and even his near relations.
In the same year my sister Elisabeth Augusta sent me a message
through Totzloff and enquired whether I had a fancy for any fruit, as
she would send me some. I was surprised at the message, which came to
me from my sister in the tenth year of my captivity, and I said,
'Better late than never!' I sent her no answer.